Verizon Early Termination Fee leaps to $350

We suppose we can’t really fault Verizon too much for wanting customers to honor their contracts rather than paying an early termination fee (ETF) of around half the phone’s value and then selling the handset for a profit on eBay, but our natural dislike of ETFs is perking up this morning. According to a leaked slide that found its way to the BGR, Verizon are now planning to charge up to $350 in termination fees on “Advanced Devices” – we’re guessing they mean smartphones or high-end featurephones – whose owners don’t complete the full term of the agreement.

The ETF does decrease by $10 for each month you remain a loyal customer, which means you could be looking at a slightly more palatable $230 halfway through the typical two-year contract. Still, it’s significantly higher than the new-line cancellation fee of $175 which some unscrupulous subscribers were taking advantage of to pick up, say, a buy-one-get-one-free BlackBerry, activate a second line, then cancel it and sell on the handset for a profit.